Families Bid Farewell To Guard Unit

Governor Presides Over Ceremony

WINDSOR LOCKS — A lot of firsts met Wednesday in the heavy air of the Army Aviation Support Facility hangar.

A governor sent her first soldiers to war. And most of those 46 soldiers -- fliers and mechanics from the 189th Aviation Regiment -- prepared for their first overseas service.

Their unit is the first from the Connecticut National Guard in the third rotation of troops to Iraq -- but it won't be the last. Maj. Gen. William Cugno, leader of the state Guard, named two other units Wednesday that will join them soon.

When the 208th Personnel Service Detachment from Niantic sends 50 for administrative work and the 141st Medical Company from New Britain sends 100 ambulance and paramedic specialists, that will bring the Connecticut National Guard's total to almost 500 serving in the war in Iraq.

This morning, 21 soldiers with the 189th's Bravo Company are set to fly their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to Fort Sill, Okla. The other 25, from a detachment of Delta Company, are going by commercial airliner. In Oklahoma, they will gather with other parts of the Montana-headquartered unit, said Lt. Col. Tom Boland, the Connecticut National Guard's aviation officer. They are expected to leave for Iraq in the fall.

On Wednesday, the soldiers stood in the heat of the hangar, its air stirred by ceiling fans and roaring jets outside its giant doors. The National Anthem poured from speakers, competing with the buzz from the lights.

The chaplain prayed to God: ``May you keep them all in the hollow of your hand.''

People there, the families sitting in folding chairs and the camouflaged soldiers standing in formation, knew about the headlines, the ones that pointed out that military deaths in Iraq had passed 1,000. They knew all of the 1,000 U.S. troops who died had once stood in a place like this to hear the same kind of speeches in front of their own families. The families embraced a hope that these rows of Connecticut soldiers wouldn't add to the number of the lost.

Chief Warrant Officer Kurt Suitor, commander of the Delta Company mechanics, has no intention of letting that happen. Twenty-five are going over, and if he has anything to say about it, 25 will be coming home at the end of their 18-month orders.

``That's my priority,'' said the 35-year-old father of two from Tolland, who is a maintenance test pilot with the unit.

He has seen the news, the routine reports of dying troops. ``There have been no days that I'm not concerned,'' he said. Even with the constant stream of difficult stories from Iraq, Suitor said, morale is good. ``The unit has a lot of faith in each other.''

It was a line echoed by Capt. Mark Strout, commander of Bravo Company. ``They're all awesome at what they do.''

What they do is run Black Hawks. The 189th is taking all five of the Guard's Black Hawks, leaving the state where the aircraft are built without their regular presence overhead. If a homeland security emergency arises, other aircraft will have to fill the need.

With several CH-47 Chinook helicopters still based at the airport, Boland said, ``We can still support state missions. We can still support homeland security.''

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the state's chief military leader, presided Wednesday over the send-off -- her first time as governor. She thanked the soldiers and families, telling them of her pride and her anxiousness to see them come home. She then posed and smiled with soldiers and families under a lightning storm of flashbulbs. Afterward, as she walked to her car, she said, ``It's never easy.'' But she added, ``I'm bursting with pride.''

Still, she said, ``The happiest day is when you're standing there when they come home.''

She'll likely attend plenty of these ceremonies. Cugno said it's possible that even more units will be called up than those already announced.

So people such as Robert Mullady from Ashford will have to figure out ways to explain their departures to their children -- in his case a young boy and girl. His daughter stood near him Wednesday in her pretty dress and said, in a barely audible voice, that she was sad that her dad is leaving.

Unlike most of the 189th, Mullady, 37, has been over there before, serving during Desert Storm in the 101st Airborne Division. But this conflict is different, he said. ``It's a tougher battle.''

For Capt. Strout, this is the first time in a 17-year military career he's leaving on a major deployment. So it's the first time his wife, Janet, is watching him go to war.

``I don't have much of a choice,'' she said, ``He's got a job to do. ... We knew it was coming.''